Staranais

The USDA database is a great resource, just be aware that it doesn't include the value of bone - i.e, the values for "chicken necks" are only for the meat portion of the neck, not the bone portion. Yellowgirl, PM me a typical week's food for your dog (in grams fed per week), and your dog's weight, and I'm happy to run it through my spreadsheet and see what I come up with. Will take me a few days to get back to you, but I'm happy to have the practice. Remember I'm just an amateur as yet though, and will only be based on the 1986 figures, so no guarantee on the results! eta: glad you found my ramblings useful, Tomas!

Hooray new puppy! What kind? Yes, I say yes to your question, wholeheartedly. I can't imagine living with a dog without being able to communicate to her that she's displeasing me. Both for very practical reasons (you can't imagine the number of things my puppy comes up to do with that are really destructive... I need to start a new thread titled "things my malinois has eaten"! ) But also, for me, for philosophical reasons too. Ideally, I want to grow to really communicate with my dog, not just train her. And full communication IMO ultimately requires me being able to communicate what I don't like, as well as what I do like her doing. However, I don't think a "negative interrupter" necessarily needs to be perceived as particularly negative by the dog. A disrupter, where the dog is distracted, and then is redirected to a more appropriate activity which can be rewarded, works really well for some dogs and some behaviors.

Organs other than liver...spleen ,pancreas,brain,lung...anyone want to add some more.... I have 10kgs of beef spleen in the freezer I am slowly working my way through as well as a few lambs brains and a lung from somewhere Kidney! eta - oh dear, Tess beat me to it! Tomas, For only a few months, and yes, I've learned heaps from comparing the values. Possibly nothing that will be of any interest to anyone else! But off the top of my head, what I'll be telling my clients (as well as hopefully having a few weekly diet sheets to give them) is: Bones have heaps of calcium, and quite a lot of phosphorus in them. Meat has hardly any calcium, and very little phosphorus. Feeding your dog as many bones as she or he needs to give an adequate calcium/phosphorus intake and ratio, then make up the rest with other ingredients such as meat, seems to work pretty well according to my calculations. My pup usually gets about 40% of the diet as RMB. That gives her about 2.6g of Ca per 1000kcal (NRC recommendation is 3g/1000kcal for puppies, so we're a little short, but adding more means I can't make my quota for zinc). Adult dogs don't need nearly as much calcium as puppies do. However, feeding too much calcium isn't a big problem for older dogs, the only ill effect I have found is that it can bind to other minerals (such as zinc) and make them less available to the dog. Puppies have a more limited ability to control absorption and excretion of excess calcium, so you have to be careful not to overdo their calcium intake by too much. And of course, the calcium phosphate ratio for pups should always be kept between 1:1 and 2:1, and preferably between 1.2:1 to 1.4:1. Liver is where you'll get most of your copper and vitamin A from. Too much vitamin A is harmful, so you can overdo it. Stick to about 5% of the diet as liver (yes, as recommended in prey model). Diets made largely of chicken are likely to be deficient in zinc. If you feed chicken bones as your RMB, it can be a good plan try to make the rest of the diet out of red meat instead of chicken meat. Zinc is pretty important for the skin and also the immune system, so I'm not keen for my dog to be borderline deficient. Skin, especially chicken skin, is about the only place you'll get much vitamin D from. Dogs can also make vitamin D themselves when their skin is exposed to sunlight, but I'd rather be safe than sorry, so I feed some skin. The NRC say that dogs probably do a certain amount of manganese, and that's almost impossible to get from meat and bone alone, so either they're wrong, or dogs do need some veges or grains in some form in the diet. Jury for me is out at the moment, until I get my hands on the new NRC book at least. I feed some grains and veges just to be on the safe side. I'd probably avoid fruit in a dog that had cancer, though. Green tripe is great! But on the whole, picturing what a wild dog would eat and feeding that in approximately the right proportions seems to "compute" OK, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it! I'd personally be more careful with puppies, especially large breed puppies, and will encourage my clients to feed them carefully if they want to feed raw.

Can contain up to 50% carbohydrates, perhaps, not should contain 50% carbohydrates? Since the NRC document I'm thinking of also states: And yes, I agree with you that 50% of the diet as carbohydrate is far too high to be optimal! The link's here, in case we're talking about different things: NRC 1986 As for the natural food not being mentioned, remember this was written in 1986! There's a newer version available, but it's very expensive, and I haven't yet managed to get anyone to cough up the money to buy it for me. I would be interested to see if raw foods are mentioned in the new version, now that more and more manufacturers are making raw dogs foods. However, I mainly use the NRC guidelines as a guide to how much calories, vitamins and minerals a dog eating a certain diet "should" be eating. I don't stick to it religiously, but I do run my diet against it each time I make substantial changes - if I have way less zinc or calcium or iron than the NRC recommends as a minimum for puppies, for example, I'd want to take a serious look at what I was feeding my pup in case I ended up causing her issues down the road. The raw diet I make tends to come out looking pretty much like my understanding of a prey model diet (one with some added veges and oats), which isn't really that surprising to me. The good thing with the NRC guidelines is that if I disagree with their results, I can go look up the science behind each particular recommendation and see how solid it is, since the NRC give references. Sometimes the science is good, sometimes it's rather shaky & I don't trust it. Plus, they're the resource (along with AAFCO) that most pet food companies use to make up their pet food - so if I write a raw diet to their specifications & recommend it to my clients, it's hard to argue I'm being a negligent vet, as you could if I just grabbed my information off the internet or made up a diet of what I thought a wild dog "should" eat. I'm not necessarily suggesting that everyone else run off and do the same, not everyone is a dog food nerd like me.

Wolves do eat them, though, so I think that argument is even more flawed than you've stated. Wolves eat vegetables: a) inside the intestines of large prey (even though wolves "shake out" the rumenoreticulum before eating it, the rumen wall has a huge surface area to trap grass, so there's still plenty of fermented of grass matter remaining in the guts after a good shaking - yes, I've tried this and can assure you it's true!) b) in the intestines of whole small prey c) i also have a couple of pictures of wolves in yellowstone eating fruit just by itself in a bad hunting season, which presumably occurs reasonably regularly in the wild state Like Corvus, I too feed veges and some grains (and will feed fruit when I can get my new miss fussy to eat some), although I do so in moderation. Dogs can do without these things, but that's not necessarily helpful guide to what's best - dogs can initially seem to do well on lots of things that are sub-optimal for the long term. Since I can't get fresh green tripe very often, I do what I think is second best and feed the veges hand processed. I also add yoghurt for the good bacteria, fish oil for EFAs, and kelp powder for iodine. My girl also regularly self supplements with cow and sheep poo from the farm - I wonder if there is anything of nuritional value there? I'd suspect there's some vitamin K and probiotics, but that's just a wild guess. As for the rest of my diet, we feed chicken necks/backs, mutton chops, lamb heart, beef liver, lamb kidney, and canned sardines. Since I'm both paranoid and very interested in canine nutrition, I've gotten hold of the NRC "nutrient requirement of dogs" values and spreadsheeted out the nutrients in my pup's typical diet to compare to NRC values. I figure having done this will come in handy in future when I graduate & have to recommend a diet to my clients, it should provide some form of proof that I'm not being negligent in my advice to them as could be claimed by disgruntled clients if I just "winged it". Plus I'm a geek, so it's fun.

That's because different dogs have different temperaments and issues, so different methods will work better for them. Also, different owners and trainers are more comfortable using different methods. So having a wide range of methods available is a good thing, in my view, even if it seems a little confusing at times. There's just no "one size fits all" with dog training. I'm glad your method is working well for you, it sounds sensible. If it doesn't work for the OP though (and it seems like lots of other things she has tried haven't worked), then it's nice for her to have the option of seeing a professional like Erny to get a hand sorting things out. Seeing a good trainer can be a investment sometimes, it can save you time and frustration.

No idea, sorry. The only relevant thought I can come up with is that dog stomach pH is closer to neutral than ours is between meals, maybe gastric acid reflux is less of a problem for them? But I do know that dogs can damage their esophagus if you let their stomach acid reflux during general anaesthesia, or if you give them drugs that make their lower esophageal sphincters not work as well, so presumably their stomach content is still acidic enough to do harm if it pools in the esophagus for a while. So that's a long way of saying, I don't know. I've never heard of a healthy dog burping causing itself problems, though.

Hi Sibylle, Obedience classes and clicker training are both good, but on their own they're mostly useful for teaching manners and tricks to "normal" dogs, not for fixing serious behaviour problems like aggression. To fix aggression, you need someone who understands the different reasons why dogs become aggressive, and who has experience working with aggressive dogs before. That's what the people on this forum mean when they say to see a dog behaviourist. It's different to just attending a regular obedience class. A good behaviourist can work wonders, but a bad or incompetent behaviourist is just a waste of money (at best). So if you say where you live, perhaps some people here can recommend good behaviourists that live near you who can help you work out why your dog is acting aggressively, and how to sort out her issues. I do recommend you get onto the problem as soon as you can. Aggression issues often become worse, or become harder to fix, the longer the dog is aggressive for. So spending some time and money fixing this now could be a really good investment.

Perhaps a mineral deficiency? What are you feeding her, are you sure she's getting everything she needs? That's a complete guess, by the way, so I could be dead wrong.

However, I really find it hard to believe that you don't punish your own dog, Corvus. What do you do when she does something you don't like, that simple ignoring won't extinguish? Or do you just mean you don't actually correct your dog? That's quite another thing. Hello. Right there. OK, I misunderstood. You just said in the same quote that you don't want to use punishment, because you consider yourself stupid when you do so, and I assumed that meant you were trying not to use punishment any longer (well, I try to avoid doing things that I think are stupid). So you do punish your dog, but think you are stupid to do so. I don't get it (I really don't), but whatever works for you and your dog I guess. I punish when I have to so my pup grows up into a bearable house companion, and don't think I'm stupid for doing so. Incidentally, I don't mind reading about the hare. I think it's often interesting, and some observations you make are certainly relevant to dog training, especially (I suspect) when you are training a timid dog like the one you often talk about (Kivi?). Some things don't cross between species, however. My dog has prey drive that your hare will never have. I suspect she also takes far better to discipline from a "leader" figure than your hare. I would be surprised if my dog wasn't more naturally inclined to take direction from me than your hare is, and is far less easily spooked by new places and situations. And so on, and so on. My point being, when I'm training a dog, why would I choose to only use techniques that would work for a hare OR a dog, if it's quicker and easier to train in a manner that just suits a dog?

Interesting. At this point I haven't pursued it further, mainly because I don't know what I want to do when I grow up, not because of any issues with the admin staff Nice to know that there is a little leniency for pushing and shoving :D I was considering the Delta course, then cramming for a Membership but I just don't know. Currently leaning towards a Masters instead. Just dunno Perhaps you can ask if you can "pass out", Rappie - by that I mean ask if you can go and sit the exam to prove to them you don't need to actually do the paper? They offer this option at my university for people who think they have enough prior knowledge not to need to do the course. Are you thinking of studying to become a veterinary behaviourist, or just wanting to add another string to your bow? ;)

That's an interesting challenge! I think it's kind of hard too, since communication between a dog and handler is always so individual. Your dog might be clearly signalling to you that she's uncomfortable and I might not see anything, and vice versa with you and my dog, since we're so used to our own dog's particular communication nuances. Will be interested to see what people come up with though. One of the subtle signs I used to miss and I now find blindingly obvious when watching videos on dog training is when a dog licks his lips because he's stressed.

I don't wish to shape with a clicker. However, I freely admit that this is because I find it frustrating. Since I teach my dog tricks for fun, I use methods I find fun unless I really have to try the frustrating ones. If I said that "where thinking stops, shaping starts" or "from my perspective, what is so smart about using shaping with an animal you love and want to trust you" then I'd expect to be questioned about it by people that like shaping! Eta: where are my manners today? Thankyou Huski and Erny.

Well, punishment is useful because it can: a) increase the bond you have with a dog, since some dogs actually like having boundaries, and will either view you as a complete "walk over" or lose trust in you if you don't enforce the rules, and b) make the dog a heck of a lot easier to live with, if it respects behavioural boundaries However, I really find it hard to believe that you don't punish your own dog, Corvus. What do you do when she does something you don't like, that simple ignoring won't extinguish? Or do you just mean you don't actually correct your dog? That's quite another thing. Heck, with my new malinois pup, seems like half of what I do when I'm interacting with her is punishing her. I time-out her for barking at the cats, I NRM her when she chews my hands or rips my clothes instead of her toys, I temporarily deny her a reward when she hasn't followed my cue. I don't do that for fun. I do it because I can't imagine what kind of crazy monster she'd grow into if I wasn't constantly giving her boundaries now! So from my perspective, using punishment is a very smart thing to do to this animal, who I want to love and trust me. As for the forum not being "balanced", positive reinforcement/no correction techniques get discussed here all the time. Just look at any recent thread, and I think you'll find that many techniques suggested are either positive based or positive only. I suspect what your PM contacts are really complaining about is that they can't come here and insinuate that trainers who use corrections are lazy, unskilled, or cruel without being challenged. Personally, that's one of the things I like about this forum.

That's not unusual, dogs that are allergic to one thing are at higher risk of being allergic to other things. Genetics is certainly a key factor as far as allergies go, and some breeds are certainly predisposed to different allergies. It's an interesting theory he's got about the parasites & diet, but I'll refrain from judging until I've seen some actual studies done. In science, lots of things that sound plausible turn out to be barking up the wrong tree. His suggestions sound sensible though, and unlikely to cause harm even if his theory is wrong.

Not sure about the mercury, but raw fish flesh can contain thiaminase which breaks down thiamin (vitamin B1), so can lead to thiamine deficiency if you feed too much raw fish. Feeding raw fish once or twice a week, I wouldn't worry about it. I feed canned sardines once a week or so to my pup, think they're great, jam packed with nutrients.

If I were you, my inclination would be to get my bitch's typical diet looked over by a canine nutritionist, then supplement any specific nutrients that were deficient, rather than just add a complete multivitamin. If nothing's deficient, a multivitamin will be a waste of money, and in the worst case scenario could even be harmful if you end up oversupplementing the wrong thing. Whereas if you know what your diet lacks, you can add that it with a cheaper human vitamin pill or even a natural ingredient. Can't give any recommendations about herbal remedies sorry, don't know much about them.

when do you think any correction should be applied, when your dogs already flipping out or before he gets to that uncontrollable stage. Who were you quoting above, Nekhbet? I can't find it. Me, that's why I replied. :p I'd told Rex that punishing my dog with an "almighty leash correction" as recommended hadn't stopped his aggressive behaviour, and Rex told me that I should have choked him out as a correction instead. No you didn't Staranais, you said that no form of physical punishment will stop your dog when it's in the zone or something to that effect and I pointed out that the physical effect of choking out will definitely stop it. I think we must be misunderstanding each other then, Rex. I meant that I had found no effective way of punishing the aggression. Punishment (by definition) means that the behaviour must be less likely to occur next time. Just temporarily interrupting the behaviour isn't technically punishment, it's just interrupting the behaviour. So yes certainly I could interrupt his aggression physically, by choking or checking or just dragging him away, but I found it hard to punish the behaviour, since he was just as aggressive the next time we were in the same situation. Do I make better sense? I'm glad the technique you were shown worked well for your dog. It can be frustrating to shell out big money to trainers who can't deliver (believe me, I've been there and done that, so I can sympathise!) But different techniques, in my experience, tend to work for different dogs. If Kavik's dog is fearful, then her aim is probably to gently teach her dog there's nothing to be scared of, rather than to scare her dog into never displaying aggression again. That's more reliable in the long run, IMO, since it truly removes the need for her dog to be aggressive, since it doesn't actually feel the fear anymore. (Forgive me if I'm putting words into your mouth, Kavik, or explaining what you're doing incorrectly). If your dog was just being a wee snot, then the clicker probably wouldn't have worked for you, since your dog really would rather blow you off to try to dominate other dogs rather than get a piece of chicken. Some dogs are like that. Whereas correcting the crap out of Kavik's already soft and nervous dog might have helped, but might also have made her behaviour far worse (by teaching her there's really something to be scared about), or unreliable (by teaching her to mask the warning signs of fear such as growling, resulting in a dog that just "explodes" at other dogs when she gets too scared to contain herself). It does happen, and I have seen it. I'd also say to your police dog trainer, I bet he uses positive reinforcement really heavily during training, even if he claims he doesn't! If he ever gives his dog a tug toy or ball reward, or ever lets him bite the helper as a reward, well that's positive reinforcement. I've never seen a tracking, airscent or bitework dog trained without lots of positive reinforcement being used, usually in the form of toys/prey drive. It doesn't have to be food to count as positive reinforcement!

I think that's pretty much what I said? Too late in our case, yes probably, but it can be bloody hard to correct a dog that goes from 0 - 100 as quick as you can blink with very few warning signs. No trainers I consulted managed it effectively enough to change his behaviour, and I surely couldn't. I've also personally grown very wary of any "anti-aggression" methods that simply punish a dog into not daring to aggress any more. I'd far prefer to change the dog's emotional reaction towards the other dogs or animals, so he doesn't see them as prey or isn't actually scared by them, doesn't become adrenalised, so doesn't feel any need to fight or chase. Rather that merely correcting him so that even though he'd still LIKE to fight or chase, he doesn't dare to. That's better than nothing, but in my world not ideal.

when do you think any correction should be applied, when your dogs already flipping out or before he gets to that uncontrollable stage. Who were you quoting above, Nekhbet? I can't find it. Me, that's why I replied. I'd told Rex that punishing my dog with an "almighty leash correction" as recommended hadn't stopped his aggressive behaviour, and Rex told me that I should have choked him out as a correction instead.

when do you think any correction should be applied, when your dogs already flipping out or before he gets to that uncontrollable stage. As early as possible, before the dog has even begun to reward themselves by performing the behaviour. However, I do not think that choking a dog out is an acceptable punishment to be used in this way. The only thing I would (and have) used choking a dog for is to get him off another animal. It's far too late to act as an effective punisher then, at least it was for my dog. Do you think you have the timing and enough dog reading ability to choke a dog out immediately every time (and only every time) that he starts to even think about aggressive? I've never met a trainer that good, and even if I did, I think that stakes for getting it wrong are just too high. Clearer?

Really? Raw ones? I'd (genuinely) love to hear the details of how often this has happened compared to how often he sees bowel obstructions from other items.

Isn't it Leerburg who also hits a dog over the head with a shovel as a way with dealing with aggression? I'm pretty sure it was Midol who saw him do it on a DVD of his. I believe Midol mentioned this in a previous thread but it was wrote on his website apparently,not on a dvd as I had asked him what dvd it was in as I have most of his dvd's and had never come across it.From memory he wasn't actually telling people to do that,he had said one of the hardest dogs he had owned he'd had to do that to stop it doing something,possibly attacking another dog,not 100% sure on that bit though It's on the Leerburg Q & A on their website, Ed Frawley says he did it to save one of his dogs when it was being attacked. Don't think he's recommending it as a training technique to cure aggression! Flame suit on, but I'd certainly hit another dog with a shovel if it was seriously attacking my dog and I couldn't get it off any other way. http://leerburg.com/dogattack.htm "Once I had a very, very dog aggressive GSD male at my kennel. A mistake happened and it attacked my 13 year old female black lab (retired drug dog). He had her down by the neck and I could not get him off her. I was not about to allow him to kill her in front of me. I hit him over the head with a flat bladed kennel shovel (with the flat of the blade). I hit him as hard as I could hit him. It took somewhere between 5 and 10 hard, hard hits for him to break-off the attack and stagger away. My point here is that it did not kill him (although I was prepared to kill him rather than allow Gabby to be killed). I am sure he had a headache for a couple of days but this extreme action on my part saved my old dog's life."

How about "dog swap", just like "wife swap"? Owner of hounds swaps with owner of working breeds. Owner of toy breeds swaps with owner of utility breeds. Providing everyone has a base level of dog skills it could be pretty amusing. Edit: FS What, if they give my dog a huge over-correction, I can give their dog one back too, kind of thing? Nah, I think I'll still pass. (I should clarify - I'm joking, of course. And the idea you describe does sound like funny TV. I still wouldn't care to participate though, since I like being the only one who rewards my dog, and I definitely wouldn't like a stranger correcting her, especially in my absence.)

Yes, choking a dog out will remove him from the zone by forcing them to react with their most basic survival reflexes, and if that fails it stops the behaviour by making the dog fall unconscious. I have had to choke my dog off another dog before, before I learned better ways to break up dog fights. It works. It does not teach the dog not to aggress in the future. It merely allows you to stop the fight in the present moment. If you own a dog who is a true predatory fighter, not a fear aggressive dog or just a rude snot, the reward from the fighting is so much greater than any punishment you administer after the dog has had the endorphin rush. Choking my dog off another dog in no way affected his desire to fight other dogs. Perhaps if you choked your dog out consistently the moment he started to think about being aggressive it would work, however I do not know a single trainer who I would trust to try that on my dog. I certainly could not read my dog well enough to do that fairly and consistently with no mistakes, and I could read him pretty damn well by the end. Yes, this works nicely if you have a dog that actually registers the leash shock. I have had my dog flip himself over backwards after running full tilt into a pinch collar on a 6 foot leash, and he was so high on endorphins and adrenaline he didn't register a thing. Yes, he was trained to walk on a loose leash under distraction using the KMODT methods. Yes, he knew what a leash correction meant. There are a lot of good methods and philosophies in the KMODT (I presume that's where your methods come from, since they sound extremely similar?) However, like all trainers, Will Koehler did not have all the answers. Like I said, the method you describe probably works OK for an adolescent snot of a dog. Not a confirmed, experienced, predatory fighter, or even worse, a fear aggressive dog. Off topic, but IMO the only thing that might have worked for my dog would be very regular very gradual desensitisation to other dogs, while allowing him an alternative outlet for his predatory urges, however I did not have access to the resources to try this out. I was able to achieve him being safe around cats using this method, although he was initially predatory towards cats and had killed a cat before I adopted him, which is why I suspect this may have been somewhat helpful with his dog aggression also. However, like I say that's just my suspicion, since I was never in a position to try this out. We did have success in using drive work pre-emptively (take him out of the car and immediately start working in drive so the other dogs didn't even figure in his universe when they appeared), however a dog that can only associate with other dogs while he's furiously focusing on earning his tug isn't exactly "cured" in my book. Just very well managed. And no, I didn't have him PTS.